Page 91 of The One-Night Heist

Well… maybe a few more treats wouldn’t hurt…

Courtesy of Mommy Luxford.

My gaze drifted from my admittedly lifeless expression to the $54,800—because, yes, I looked it up—Code 11.59 Piguet I couldn’t bear to leave behind as I slinked away from Giano’s hotel room.

I deserve it after what I’ve been through.

Even with myself as the only witness to my inner rantings, my indignation rang false, but I was still in no mood to examine what I was really feeling, so instead flagged down the bartender to bring me another refill.

“Ya know… you could just admit you’re worried about your boyfriend, Rowen, instead of sulking about it.”

Maybe I could get off with a charge of manslaughter…

“My BOYFRIEND?!” I sputtered, uncaring that a few patrons were now giving me more attention than the game. “When have you ever known me to have a boyfriend, Mick? In the nearly twenty years since you and I randomly ended up in the same household, do you recall me wanting to be so much as seen with the same person more than once?”

“Never,” Mick replied, smirking into his beer bottle like a man who wanted it broken over his oversized head. “That’s why I know what a momentous occasion it is that you were cuddling with your boyfriend in hotel bathrobes, watching movies and eating room service and sleeping over in the same bed when there was a whole other bedroom in the attached suite⁠—”

“It was just a fuck, Mick, Jesus…” I grumbled, cringing worse at my own lie than I had when Giano had refused to go harder and faster like I’d wanted.

Like I’d thought I wanted…

“Do your fuckboys usually buy you fifty-four-thousand-dollar watches?” he added, digging his grave deeper.

Never mind that my first instinct was to yell at him about referring to my billionaire as a “fuckboy,” I turned on my barstool to fully face the object of my irritation. “How the hell do you know how much my watch costs?”

Mick rolled his eyes with an annoyed huff, finally matching my mood. “That’s a starter watch for some of my clients, and no matter how good of a dicking I give any of them, ain’t nobody buying me a Piguet.”

I huffed, tipping the bartender heavily when he delivered another spritz. “Maybe your dicking could use some work then, hmm?”

He snorted and saucily tilted the ridiculous fedora we’d convinced Franz to hand over to disguise me on the way out of the hotel. Of course, Mick had claimed it as his own at the first opportunity, and was oddly pulling it off.

Not that I would ever tell him that.

“I dunno, carrots. I sure didn’t get any complaints last night.”

Ew.

“Please spare me the details of you and Daddy Pinstripes.” I fake-gagged. “Who, need I remind you, high-tailed it far away from both of us along with you-know-who.”

Mick’s face fell, which had uncomfortable empathy bubbling to the surface once again. A rare apology was on my lips when he turned to face me, but apparently, my longtime partner in crime hadn’t lost the ability to ignore my personal jabs.

“Do you really think that’s what’s going on here, dummy?” he scoffed, with pity instead of anger, which was ten times worse. “Franz left because you-know-who is his family. Maybe not by blood, but neither are we, and that doesn’t change how Luce and I see you… whether or not you feel the same.”

Ouch.

By some goddamn miracle, he didn’t expect me to answer that rudely pointed question, which was fine, because I sure as shit didn’t trust myself to speak.

Why is everyone so intent on making me feel things?

“And I don’t know how the hell you don’t understand that Mr. Buys His Fuckboy Boyfriend a Piguet wasn’t forbidding you from joining him because he was breaking up with you. He did it to protect you…”

Protect me?!

I’d never needed anyone to protect me—not when I was just another unwanted kid at St. Anthony’s too old to be “cute,” when I was thrown into an already overflowing foster home, when I struck out on my own in the criminal underworld, or when I fucked up and got myself caught by the goddamn FBI.

I’ve never needed anyone.

Right?